This course will focus on the changing representations of human
consciousness in American fiction through the twentieth century.
The Romantic notion of an essential, stable, autonomous
consciousness took a beating during this period from new theories in
philosophy and psychology about what consciousness is made of and
how it is affected by the world around it. Human consciousness was
determined by economic forces, or rooted in the uncontrollable
desires of the unconscious; some Americans had a double-
consciousness; consciousness was understood as a stream, or as a
product of language. Indeed, the evolution of twentieth century
Western thought arguably embodies a journey toward the death of
consciousness altogether. Yet during the same period, the
individual was being heralded as an end in him- or herself: the self-
reliant, self-made American. We will explore how these
contradictory forces richly manifest themselves in the formal
experimentation of modern texts, in the fictional minds we encounter
there, and in our own (post?)modern minds. Throughout the course,
our study will be supplemented by theorists who effected and
explored the transformations of modern consciousness in the
twentieth century, such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, William James,
W.E.B. Dubois, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Frederic
Jameson.

Texts will likely include the following: William Faulkner, The
Sound and the Fury; Gertrude Stein, “Melanctha”; Zora Neale
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Nella Larsen,
Passing; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; John
Updike, Rabbit, Run; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot
49; Don DeLillo, Americana; and short fiction by Theodore
Dreiser, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, John Barth, and
Ronald Sukenick. Assignments will include one short close reading
of 3-4 pages, one longer analysis of 6-8 pages, an annotated
bibliography and class presentation on the secondary criticism of a
text of your choice, unannounced quizzes over course readings, and a
final exam.